Thursday, 9 May 2013

A hot pink Parisian birthday cake (& some musings on thievery!)

A couple of months ago I made
some ice cream cupcakes. The cake mixture was baked into an ice cream cone and
topped with creamy white icing and a Flake to make it look like an ice cream. I
didn’t think of this idea myself; I got it from the internet, probably from
Pintrest but I can’t be sure.

This didn't stop me, however,
from being very cross mere days later when very similar ice cream cupcakes
appeared on an old school friend’s Facebook. Being slightly prone to the
dramatics I decided that she must have stolen the idea from me and was outraged
at the swiftness with which she’d tried to out-cupcake me.

She could have got the idea from
anywhere. And who was I to kick up a fuss when I knew I had also taken the idea
from someone else. Was it ok for me to do it because I had taken it from the faceless
internet? Not really, it was still someone’s idea somewhere along the line.

This issue cropped up again when
I was asked to do a 50th birthday cake. The lovely lady wanted a Paris
themed cake for her Mum and I was so excited when she sent me over some
pictures; the cake was going to be all pretty and girly. But she’d sent me
pictures of someone else’s work. “Could I do something like this?” Yes. But I’d
be copying. But then what do you do in this situation? That’s what she wanted.

Using pictures googled from the
internet is easy. It gives the customer ideas, and it gives the baker a clear
idea of what they want. It also makes it easier the other way round; it’s
easier to have picture references for your ideas. So my current way round this is
to ‘fess up: this cake was not my idea. Someone else has spent a lot of time
and effort making these cakes. So please have a look on the sites for the cakes
this design came from; they are both very talented cake decorators and I hope I
did them some justice.

All that being said, I had a
great time doing this cake, it was so bright and feminine, and was well
received by the customer.I know in my heart that I do have
some work that is original. Or at least I’m pretty sure it’s original. And I
just hope if anyone ever uses my ideas(!), they take the time to at least give
me a little credit.